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Dec 30, 2012
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we had was within the pentagon. you would think that if you're sending more troops to afghanistan, those troops would go to places that were most critical, the places that the taliban were seeking to take over, the places that were most at risk, potentially a takeover of the country. instead, we wound up sending the first wave of new forces took part of the country with relatively few people. and i discovered the answer was simply tribal rivalries. not in afghanistan but in the pentagon. it turned out that the first wave of troops were u.s. marines. they wanted to bring their own helicopters, the own logistics. so they did was to work with u.s. army soldiers in the areas in and around the city of kandahar. it was this tale of our own services fighting with each other instead of fighting in common purpose against the enemy. and the stories go on. there was into fighting then the state department, within the u.s. agency for international development. and one other tale, i recount in some detail in the book, we had som
we had was within the pentagon. you would think that if you're sending more troops to afghanistan, those troops would go to places that were most critical, the places that the taliban were seeking to take over, the places that were most at risk, potentially a takeover of the country. instead, we wound up sending the first wave of new forces took part of the country with relatively few people. and i discovered the answer was simply tribal rivalries. not in afghanistan but in the pentagon. it...
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Dec 30, 2012
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i was at the pentagon and was there when a colleague of mine got a silver star for his actions in afghanistan. he was clearing a landing zone they called in the medevac he tried to clear the area he steps on one and he lost both legs and a left arm. when i say i am lucky with an average experience he is my reference. he may say he is lucky people put him three tourniquets on him. then we have a memorial in florida where the tax code to school for everyone who died in the line of duty since world war ii. we put more names on the memorial last year since 1945 and 120 since then 11. that number may feel low compared to the thousands we have lost that is 120 brothers and sons and we are a small community. that is the grief you process and your own fear of death and i don't have a good answer to figure that out but i am not sure i did but i tried to weave so as to threats that felt like it was happening at the same time so i would like to read from the beginning of the book to give you a sense of how it feels and running helped me spin as a first thing you should know is i'm crazy. i have not alwa
i was at the pentagon and was there when a colleague of mine got a silver star for his actions in afghanistan. he was clearing a landing zone they called in the medevac he tried to clear the area he steps on one and he lost both legs and a left arm. when i say i am lucky with an average experience he is my reference. he may say he is lucky people put him three tourniquets on him. then we have a memorial in florida where the tax code to school for everyone who died in the line of duty since...
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Jan 1, 2013
01/13
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>> what, as it has the military loses in korea, because the pentagon says to ridgway, you're going to embarrass us and congress will start asking massive questions, so ridgway wanted to firefight of his division commanders in korea. they basically told and you can do it but do it on the down low. >> pretend its rotation. >> and they basically say, joe collins, the chief of staff is already lied to congress about this, so just keep up the faÇade. we lose the tradition of relief partly because in the small unpopular message boards is harder to know what success looks like. yet you can be successful but it's clear to me i think general petraeus was successful during the surge in extricating the united states from iraq, which i think is true mission. in getting us out of the war in one form or another. you've got an interesting pointer which is a secondary theme of the book which is civil military discourse. i want to give a shout out to two people, bob who suffered through reading my manuscript twice, and lieutenant general jim duquette, if he is here. oh, there you are. gym is the exce
>> what, as it has the military loses in korea, because the pentagon says to ridgway, you're going to embarrass us and congress will start asking massive questions, so ridgway wanted to firefight of his division commanders in korea. they basically told and you can do it but do it on the down low. >> pretend its rotation. >> and they basically say, joe collins, the chief of staff is already lied to congress about this, so just keep up the faÇade. we lose the tradition of...
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Jan 2, 2013
01/13
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unfortunately, members of the pentagon said this was always the deception deception being done by bin laden to take everyone's eyes off of saddam hussein. after the attack, they got very aggressive in terms of policies they decided it took on. what you see in this book is what went into the decisions, how fast they were victims sometimes how badly they were made, but also some of them came out clearly the rate decisions. >> curt akin won't come to use the her secrets and lies. was fun until the lies he found? >> there are quite so many. when you get right down to it, some had to do the simple things such as the knowledge they had within the government about the connections between al qaeda and saddam hussein. one of the most surprising things to me was there as a defense intelligence agency report, a classified report that came out in 2002, that specifically said our intelligence on weapons of mass destruction is terrible. we can't establish any of the things were saying to the public and a quote from that document pretty extensively. so that was disturbing on the level that it really
unfortunately, members of the pentagon said this was always the deception deception being done by bin laden to take everyone's eyes off of saddam hussein. after the attack, they got very aggressive in terms of policies they decided it took on. what you see in this book is what went into the decisions, how fast they were victims sometimes how badly they were made, but also some of them came out clearly the rate decisions. >> curt akin won't come to use the her secrets and lies. was fun...
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Dec 31, 2012
12/12
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says after the election i'm going to do it he said it to tip o'neill -- >> i'm sure you grew up on the pentagon papers, the secret history of the war, represent by daniel elsburg, is it true the papers were about vietnam was gaining territory. so perhaps by the '64 election this would have been major issue for kennedy, and he would have had to coming on more hawkish, again. >> counterfactual. we think kennedy had a certain kind of self-confidence. kennedy said at one opinion if somebody argues to me about unemployment, i can refute him. i have no problem. but somebody from the intelligence community or the military comes in, i always assume that they had a special knowledge that i didn't have. he says i've learned different. they really don't. he said at a later point, i'm going to tell my successor that the most important thing he has to learn is not trust the military, not to trust the joint chiefs. kennedy stood up to those people. >> in 2009, obama had the contrary result with the generals pressing him on afghanistan, the surge there. >> do you think -- i want to hear you talk about it -- h
says after the election i'm going to do it he said it to tip o'neill -- >> i'm sure you grew up on the pentagon papers, the secret history of the war, represent by daniel elsburg, is it true the papers were about vietnam was gaining territory. so perhaps by the '64 election this would have been major issue for kennedy, and he would have had to coming on more hawkish, again. >> counterfactual. we think kennedy had a certain kind of self-confidence. kennedy said at one opinion if...